Does female access to reproductive control reduce poverty?

This question was inspired by Christoper Hitchens and his claim that allowing women the rights to control their reproductive system will reduce poverty worldwide. This post will examine if there is any research supporting these claims.

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Here is one of the largest international human rights data sites and it makes the case for this pretty soundly. This is one of the main data collections that Hans Rosling frequently used. The basic idea (of the data site) is that you look at all available records (birth rates, infant mortality rates, life expectancy, overall levels of education for the population as a whole and for specific demographics, etc) for as far back as those records go. Then, you map out correlations (for example – female education and infant mortality rates, although that is a much simpler example than one this data is used for) and, based off past records, you estimate the impact that changes in a given demographic will have. More education usually equals higher quality of life, greater political representation usually results in more egalitarian legislation (including women controlling their reproductive rights) and so on.

I highly recommend reading Hans Roslings book, Factfulness. It will have cites to other studies and it’s a quick and fun read. There’s some pretty strong indication that when more children survived women decided to have fewer children. There’s also a correlation in the decrease of birthrates and women’s education. There are some pretty strong indications that China’s One Child policy was less effective at reducing birth rates than increasing women’s education.

The theory here is – women control their reproductive cycles (contraceptives, abortions) means that they can control when/how many children they have. Ideally, this means that they could work or go to school when they want to, rather than just be a baby machine.

Also, presumably, they would have fewer children and be in a better economic position (fewer mouths to feed).

Finally, there is a feeling from a human rights perspective that the woman’s role in how many children, when, etc. is subservient to what the man in the family wants.

When a woman can choose if/when to start having children, women with easy access to birth control tend to have children later in life. A 26 year old mother is typically in a better position to raise children than a 16-20 year old mother. And it’s very hard for a very young mom to improve their circumstances. You’re just living hand to mouth and more kids (due to lack of reproductive control) exponentially adds to the issue.